Hertford Regional College, or “HRC,” a large further education college in Hertfordshire, deployed Agito RoamAnywhere Mobility Router to improve the accessibility of mobile staff.

 

HRC currently employs 900 staff and serves more than 12,000 full- and part-time students. Dr. Daniel Hidlebaugh, Network Services manager, said that they are currently finalizing a $140 million construction project to update its facilities. They have slated a grand opening of the facilities in Ware this month and in Broxbourne, next month.

 

Though both these buildings are state of the art, their building materials do not allow cellular coverage indoors. The college wants to offer their students and staff the very best technology to support learning and this requires fast, reliable, mobile communications in all areas, said Andy Forbes, principal and chief executive.

 

Forbes is excited at the extra communication capability that Agito offers to their staff and believes this to be another big step forward for Hertford Regional College.

 

Agito Networks' (News - Alert) FMC solution reportedly was introduced to HRC by Andrew Dominic, senior sales consultant at Convergis.

 

“The long-term strategic partnership and scalable network design, delivered by Convergis and the HRC IT team, meant the college already had a solid, voice-ready network available,” Dominic said. “With Cisco (News - Alert) VoIP and campus-wide Cisco Unified Wireless LAN already deployed, the Agito RoamAnywhere was the logical additional hardware requirement.”

 

HRC is also using Nokia handhelds and subscribes to T-Mobile (News - Alert) cellular service. The college has already completed the initial roll out to key staff in network services, security and maintenance, and has planned the next rollout for teachers and students in 2010.

 

Hidlebaugh said that it's impossible to imagine HRC without Agito system now as everyone is benefiting from the deployment. The college also expects to cut its monthly mobility charges in half; they were paying $6,000 in telephony charges each month.

 

"HRC is a growing college serving the education needs of the Hertfordshire area, and its new facilities are impressive and truly state of the art," Paul Donovan, Agito Networks VP of European Business and Market Development, said.